If I surveyed my patients on how they feel when a friend announces a pregnancy, the majority of them would say that although they're happy for a friend, they also immediately feel sad, depressed, inadequate, and like a failure. Sometimes, there are feelings of jealousy mixed in there as well.
Hearing about others’ success stories is a double-edged sword. It can certainly give you a ray of hope—if it worked for her, it can work for me, too. Sometimes, it gives you the motivation to get back on track with your routine, but sometimes, it doesn’t—it makes you feel worse.
In this episode, I answer your question: why is it so easy for her but not for me?
Follow me on instagram @dradriennewei
Website: www.adriennewei.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Practically Fertile Podcast.
I'm Adrienne Wee, doctor ofAcupuncture and Chinese Medicine
, functional MedicinePractitioner and Functional
Nutritionist.
I specialize in using anevidence-based method, blending
principles of East Asianmedicine and modern functional
medicine to help women optimizefertility and get pregnant.
(00:22):
I believe in a world whereevery woman who wants to be a
mother becomes one.
If you're tired of being toldthat you're infertile and you
want to take the right steps toget pregnant naturally and
quickly, this podcast is for you.
If I surveyed my patients onhow they feel when a friend
(00:42):
announces a pregnancy, themajority of them would say that,
although they're happy for thefriend, they immediately feel
sad, depressed and inadequateand like a failure.
Sometimes there are feelings ofjealousy mixed in there as well
.
Hearing about others' successstories is a double-edged sword.
It can certainly give you a rayof hope, like if it worked for
(01:06):
her.
It can work for me too, andsometimes it gives you the
motivation to get back on trackwith your routine.
But sometimes it doesn't.
It makes you feel worse.
Although you're happy for thisperson.
The biggest question thatyou're asking yourself is why
not me?
Why does it seem so easy forher but not for me?
(01:26):
Do you know what I'm talkingabout that icky feeling like
you're doing something wrong,like you're not good enough.
We all compare ourselves toothers.
We all have friends who seem tojust so easily acquire whatever
their hearts desire.
When other people are postingcute pregnancy selfies and baby
pictures, part of us is saying,well, I want that too.
(01:47):
I don't want to miss out onshopping for baby's clothes and
showing off bump pictures.
I don't want to talk aboutcomparison or FOMO today.
That's not the focus of thisepisode.
I actually want to answer thequestion so many of you have why
her, not me?
And I'm going to answer yourquestion so many of you have why
her not me?
And I'm going to answer yourquestions with Chinese medicine.
(02:08):
Yes, there's a real explanationwith Chinese medicine, and
after you're done with thisepisode, you're going to feel a
lot better because you canactually do something about it.
So let's dive in.
So if you ask a doctor the samequestion why her, not me?
He or she might give you ananswer like well, it must be
(02:31):
genetics.
Everyone's different.
I talk about that too.
But why exactly is everyonedifferent?
From a Chinese medicineperspective, it all comes down
to your kidneys.
When Western medicine doctorstalk about the kidneys, they're
usually referring to thefunction of the kidneys as an
(02:51):
organ like it's used to filterblood about two liters each day
remove toxins and controlurination.
The kidneys also releasehormones to stimulate red blood
cell formation in the bones.
They are super important forthe electrolyte and water
balance in our bodies and alsowe can function with only one
(03:15):
kidney.
If one's removed, the other onewill compensate and take over.
The adrenal glands sit on topof the kidneys and they're so,
so, so important.
They regulate the nervoussystem and reproductive system
with hormones like cortisol,adrenaline, dhea.
But the kidneys in Chinesemedicine are on a whole
(03:38):
different level.
We put the kidneys on apedestal because they are the
vital life force, the origin oflife, and they control more than
just filtration anddetoxification.
The kidneys have broaderfunctions.
In Chinese medicine Some ofthem relate to organ functions.
(03:59):
Like in the Western medicalworld, they control the bladder
and therefore water metabolismand urination.
In Chinese medicine the kidneyscontrol the bone marrow as well
.
So nourishing them will help toboost blood production.
But there's a whole other aspectof the functions of the kidneys
(04:21):
that's unique to our medicineand that is the kidneys control
reproduction, because that'swhere our reproductive qi, or
energy, is stored, and thisreproductive energy is part of
what we call jing or essence.
Most of you are familiar withthe terms Yin and Yang.
Yin energy is the cooling,lubricating energy, and Yang
(04:44):
energy is the moving and warmingenergy.
But we haven't talked aboutJing or essence.
The best way to look at Jing isthat it's similar to DNA and
genetics.
From a Western medicineperspective, the kidney essence
is the source for yin and yangenergetics, just like Western
(05:06):
medicine looks at your geneticsthat were born a certain way and
also pertaining to fertility.
A woman is born with all theeggs that she'll ever need for
life no more, no less.
In Chinese medicine, we areborn with a certain eggs that
she'll ever need for life nomore, no less.
In Chinese medicine, we areborn with a certain amount of
kidney gene.
Think of it as like a savingsbank.
(05:26):
So in this savings bank, ourparents deposited a certain
amount of reserve when we wereconceived.
Think of how, when the spermfertilizes the egg, all the
genetic materials combinetogether.
We're born with a certainamount of savings.
And here is the thing everyone'sreserve levels are totally
(05:47):
different.
How much we get depends on ourparents' age, their health
status at the time and theirlifestyle.
So another reason to work onyour health before getting
pregnant is because it doesaffect the next generations,
anyway.
So we get the savings bank fromour parents when we were born
(06:07):
and whenever we need it we dipinto it, like for major live
events like hitting puberty,getting the first period,
ovulation every month,maintaining a pregnancy, giving
birth, breastfeeding, and alsoeveryday events like needing to
stay up an extra hour to finishwork, needing a little extra
(06:28):
energy to get through a30-minute run, needing to
recover from an illness.
As we age, our reserve getslower and lower and then we die.
Sounds really morbid, butthat's just what happens.
However, we can slow down thedrain on this reserve because we
(06:48):
get a little help from otherorgans in the body Spleen, liver
, heart, to name a few.
As long as the organs areworking together and functioning
well, we preserve the savings.
The spleen helps to generate chito use throughout the day by
processing the foods that we eatand extract energy from them to
(07:09):
transport to other organs.
If you're eating a crappy diet,then yes, you guessed it your
body would have to borrow fromyour energy reserve in the
kidneys.
Your body would have to borrowfrom your energy reserve in the
kidneys.
The liver helps us with stressmanagement and making sure the
chi that was made by the spleenis circulating and getting to
where it needs to go.
If we're constantly stressed,then, yes, the liver energy is
(07:31):
going to be stuck.
All the other organs are goingto be malnourished, so we're
going to have to borrow from ourreserves.
Now, stress is a really broadterm.
Stress can come from chronicillness, autoimmune disorders.
If our body's fightinginflammation, it's all hands on
deck and the savings bank isused again.
(07:53):
Stress can also be emotionalstress.
Who are we hanging out withthat are toxic to us?
For us, how about long-termmedication use?
The liver and kidneys have towork overtime to detox and get
rid of the byproducts ofmetabolizing these meds.
So that's going to expediteyour withdrawal from your
savings bank.
(08:15):
Are you burning the midnight oil?
It's sad that in our society wepraise those people who work
overtime, who go the extra mile,quote, unquote and it's almost
like you can't get anywhere inlife if you don't do that.
But anytime you stay up toolate, you are burning up your
reserve.
You probably can figure outwhere I'm going with this.
(08:35):
Your lifestyle choicesabsolutely impact how quickly
your kidney energy is depleted.
And if your kidney energy isnot preserved then, yes, you can
run into issues with fertility.
I have a lot of patients whodon't have issues getting
pregnant the first time, butstruggle to try to conceive with
their second child, and thefirst thing I look at is their
(09:00):
recovery after childbirth.
Pregnancy and childbirth areboth major events that require
you to dip into your savings.
They're the mostenergy-draining events in a
woman's life and in Asia, afterchildbirth, traditionally women
stay home for an entire month torecover.
(09:20):
It's called sitting the month.
That's how they do it in China.
Postpartum women don't bathe,they eat only hot foods and the
whole family chips in to helpwith the newborn.
Versus in the US, women have torush to get back to work or
right after childbirth they'regoing back to boot camp and
running again.
(09:40):
And new mothers are so busytaking care of the newborn
because in our culture here veryoften you don't live near
family and you have no help.
So new mothers have to takecare of the baby, their families
and they often forget to takecare of themselves.
So the reason why gettingpregnant may seem easier for
some women, even those women whohave terrible habits like drug
(10:03):
addiction, and they seem to getpregnant so easily.
Well, perhaps this person wasborn with more kidney essence
and had a bigger savings account.
And the friend whose husbandlooks at her and she gets
pregnant, maybe she's workinghard to preserve her kidney
essence.
And here's the thing you can'tcontrol how much kidney gene or
(10:26):
essence you were born with,because that depends on your
parents.
However, you can definitelycontrol your lifestyle choices.
So if you are a water archetype, this episode is especially
important for you.
Water pairs with the kidneys,although for the other
(10:47):
archetypes, their imbalances canaffect the kidneys and start to
draw from their preserves.
For the water archetype, yourmain pattern of imbalance are
with the kidneys.
Yin deficiency is the mostcommon one.
You might also have elements ofsome young deficiency, because
one affects the other, but as awater archetype, you might
(11:08):
already be starting off withkidney energy deficiency.
For example, one symptom that,as a water archetype, you might
experience is premature grayingof hair.
This is usually a sign that youwere born with a slightly lower
kidney gene reserve.
Birth defects a lot of timescan also mean low kidney gene as
(11:31):
well.
Low ovarian reserve.
In some cases you might havebeen born with a smaller reserve
, so you must work especiallydiligent in preserving the drain
on this reserve.
And if you're a water archetypeand you don't have these
symptoms, I would just takeprecautions now to slow down the
(11:52):
depletion process.
I'm not saying that, don't haveany fun, I totally get it.
I have this thing planned withmy friends once a year and we do
go clubbing and we're out until2 am.
You have times when you have toenjoy your life, so don't
(12:13):
stress and think that you needto stop living life.
However, what I want you tolook at is this what are you
doing to preserve your energysavings bank?
Do you know what you need to bedoing but not doing?
Do you find yourself making upexcuses like well, it's just
this one time, it won't matterin the long run, well, these one
(12:36):
times are going to add up tobig withdrawals from your energy
savings bank.
So, to wrap it up, let's recaprecap we talked about in this
episode what makes us alldifferent, and the reason is our
kidney jing or essence ourenergy savings bank.
We're born with a certainamount of this energy reserve
(12:58):
and our lifestyle choicesdetermine how quickly we
withdraw from the savings andultimately impact fertility,
because reproductive energy ispart of the kidney gene or
essence.
So your action item, as weconcluded this episode, is focus
on what you can control.
You can only control your ownactions, your own choices.
(13:20):
We always have a choice, andyou'll know whether your choice
will help you or set you backwhen you start seeing results or
when it seems like nothing isworking.
So there you have it.
I hope you enjoyed today'sepisode.
If you like what you're hearing, please don't forget to share
with others.
Thank you so much for tuning intoday.
(13:40):
Until next time, have a greatweek.
Welcome to the Practically Fertile Podcast.
I'm Adrienne Wee, doctor ofAcupuncture and Chinese Medicine
, functional MedicinePractitioner and Functional
Nutritionist.
I specialize in using anevidence-based method, blending
principles of East Asianmedicine and modern functional
medicine to help women optimizefertility and get pregnant.
(00:22):
I believe in a world whereevery woman who wants to be a
mother becomes one.
If you're tired of being toldthat you're infertile and you
want to take the right steps toget pregnant naturally and
quickly, this podcast is for you.
If I surveyed my patients onhow they feel when a friend
(00:42):
announces a pregnancy, themajority of them would say that,
although they're happy for thefriend, they immediately feel
sad, depressed and inadequateand like a failure.
Sometimes there are feelings ofjealousy mixed in there as well
.
Hearing about others' successstories is a double-edged sword.
It can certainly give you a rayof hope, like if it worked for
(01:06):
her.
It can work for me too, andsometimes it gives you the
motivation to get back on trackwith your routine.
But sometimes it doesn't.
It makes you feel worse.
Although you're happy for thisperson.
The biggest question thatyou're asking yourself is why
not me?
Why does it seem so easy forher but not for me?
(01:26):
Do you know what I'm talkingabout that icky feeling like
you're doing something wrong,like you're not good enough.
We all compare ourselves toothers.
We all have friends who seem tojust so easily acquire whatever
their hearts desire.
When other people are postingcute pregnancy selfies and baby
pictures, part of us is saying,well, I want that too.
(01:47):
I don't want to miss out onshopping for baby's clothes and
showing off bump pictures.
I don't want to talk aboutcomparison or FOMO today.
That's not the focus of thisepisode.
I actually want to answer thequestion so many of you have why
her, not me?
And I'm going to answer yourquestion so many of you have why
her not me?
And I'm going to answer yourquestions with Chinese medicine.
(02:08):
Yes, there's a real explanationwith Chinese medicine, and
after you're done with thisepisode, you're going to feel a
lot better because you canactually do something about it.
So let's dive in.
So if you ask a doctor the samequestion why her, not me?
He or she might give you ananswer like well, it must be
(02:31):
genetics.
Everyone's different.
I talk about that too.
But why exactly is everyonedifferent?
From a Chinese medicineperspective, it all comes down
to your kidneys.
When Western medicine doctorstalk about the kidneys, they're
usually referring to thefunction of the kidneys as an
(02:51):
organ like it's used to filterblood about two liters each day
remove toxins and controlurination.
The kidneys also releasehormones to stimulate red blood
cell formation in the bones.
They are super important forthe electrolyte and water
balance in our bodies and alsowe can function with only one
(03:15):
kidney.
If one's removed, the other onewill compensate and take over.
The adrenal glands sit on topof the kidneys and they're so,
so, so important.
They regulate the nervoussystem and reproductive system
with hormones like cortisol,adrenaline, dhea.
But the kidneys in Chinesemedicine are on a whole
(03:38):
different level.
We put the kidneys on apedestal because they are the
vital life force, the origin oflife, and they control more than
just filtration anddetoxification.
The kidneys have broaderfunctions.
In Chinese medicine Some ofthem relate to organ functions.
(03:59):
Like in the Western medicalworld, they control the bladder
and therefore water metabolismand urination.
In Chinese medicine the kidneyscontrol the bone marrow as well
.
So nourishing them will help toboost blood production.
But there's a whole other aspectof the functions of the kidneys
(04:21):
that's unique to our medicineand that is the kidneys control
reproduction, because that'swhere our reproductive qi, or
energy, is stored, and thisreproductive energy is part of
what we call jing or essence.
Most of you are familiar withthe terms Yin and Yang.
Yin energy is the cooling,lubricating energy, and Yang
(04:44):
energy is the moving and warmingenergy.
But we haven't talked aboutJing or essence.
The best way to look at Jing isthat it's similar to DNA and
genetics.
From a Western medicineperspective, the kidney essence
is the source for yin and yangenergetics, just like Western
(05:06):
medicine looks at your geneticsthat were born a certain way and
also pertaining to fertility.
A woman is born with all theeggs that she'll ever need for
life no more, no less.
In Chinese medicine, we areborn with a certain eggs that
she'll ever need for life nomore, no less.
In Chinese medicine, we areborn with a certain amount of
kidney gene.
Think of it as like a savingsbank.
(05:26):
So in this savings bank, ourparents deposited a certain
amount of reserve when we wereconceived.
Think of how, when the spermfertilizes the egg, all the
genetic materials combinetogether.
We're born with a certainamount of savings.
And here is the thing everyone'sreserve levels are totally
(05:47):
different.
How much we get depends on ourparents' age, their health
status at the time and theirlifestyle.
So another reason to work onyour health before getting
pregnant is because it doesaffect the next generations,
anyway.
So we get the savings bank fromour parents when we were born
(06:07):
and whenever we need it we dipinto it, like for major live
events like hitting puberty,getting the first period,
ovulation every month,maintaining a pregnancy, giving
birth, breastfeeding, and alsoeveryday events like needing to
stay up an extra hour to finishwork, needing a little extra
(06:28):
energy to get through a30-minute run, needing to
recover from an illness.
As we age, our reserve getslower and lower and then we die.
Sounds really morbid, butthat's just what happens.
However, we can slow down thedrain on this reserve because we
(06:48):
get a little help from otherorgans in the body Spleen, liver
, heart, to name a few.
As long as the organs areworking together and functioning
well, we preserve the savings.
The spleen helps to generate chito use throughout the day by
processing the foods that we eatand extract energy from them to
(07:09):
transport to other organs.
If you're eating a crappy diet,then yes, you guessed it your
body would have to borrow fromyour energy reserve in the
kidneys.
Your body would have to borrowfrom your energy reserve in the
kidneys.
The liver helps us with stressmanagement and making sure the
chi that was made by the spleenis circulating and getting to
where it needs to go.
If we're constantly stressed,then, yes, the liver energy is
(07:31):
going to be stuck.
All the other organs are goingto be malnourished, so we're
going to have to borrow from ourreserves.
Now, stress is a really broadterm.
Stress can come from chronicillness, autoimmune disorders.
If our body's fightinginflammation, it's all hands on
deck and the savings bank isused again.
(07:53):
Stress can also be emotionalstress.
Who are we hanging out withthat are toxic to us?
For us, how about long-termmedication use?
The liver and kidneys have towork overtime to detox and get
rid of the byproducts ofmetabolizing these meds.
So that's going to expediteyour withdrawal from your
savings bank.
(08:15):
Are you burning the midnight oil?
It's sad that in our society wepraise those people who work
overtime, who go the extra mile,quote, unquote and it's almost
like you can't get anywhere inlife if you don't do that.
But anytime you stay up toolate, you are burning up your
reserve.
You probably can figure outwhere I'm going with this.
(08:35):
Your lifestyle choicesabsolutely impact how quickly
your kidney energy is depleted.
And if your kidney energy isnot preserved then, yes, you can
run into issues with fertility.
I have a lot of patients whodon't have issues getting
pregnant the first time, butstruggle to try to conceive with
their second child, and thefirst thing I look at is their
(09:00):
recovery after childbirth.
Pregnancy and childbirth areboth major events that require
you to dip into your savings.
They're the mostenergy-draining events in a
woman's life and in Asia, afterchildbirth, traditionally women
stay home for an entire month torecover.
(09:20):
It's called sitting the month.
That's how they do it in China.
Postpartum women don't bathe,they eat only hot foods and the
whole family chips in to helpwith the newborn.
Versus in the US, women have torush to get back to work or
right after childbirth they'regoing back to boot camp and
running again.
(09:40):
And new mothers are so busytaking care of the newborn
because in our culture here veryoften you don't live near
family and you have no help.
So new mothers have to takecare of the baby, their families
and they often forget to takecare of themselves.
So the reason why gettingpregnant may seem easier for
some women, even those women whohave terrible habits like drug
(10:03):
addiction, and they seem to getpregnant so easily.
Well, perhaps this person wasborn with more kidney essence
and had a bigger savings account.
And the friend whose husbandlooks at her and she gets
pregnant, maybe she's workinghard to preserve her kidney
essence.
And here's the thing you can'tcontrol how much kidney gene or
(10:26):
essence you were born with,because that depends on your
parents.
However, you can definitelycontrol your lifestyle choices.
So if you are a water archetype, this episode is especially
important for you.
Water pairs with the kidneys,although for the other
(10:47):
archetypes, their imbalances canaffect the kidneys and start to
draw from their preserves.
For the water archetype, yourmain pattern of imbalance are
with the kidneys.
Yin deficiency is the mostcommon one.
You might also have elements ofsome young deficiency, because
one affects the other, but as awater archetype, you might
(11:08):
already be starting off withkidney energy deficiency.
For example, one symptom that,as a water archetype, you might
experience is premature grayingof hair.
This is usually a sign that youwere born with a slightly lower
kidney gene reserve.
Birth defects a lot of timescan also mean low kidney gene as
(11:31):
well.
Low ovarian reserve.
In some cases you might havebeen born with a smaller reserve
, so you must work especiallydiligent in preserving the drain
on this reserve.
And if you're a water archetypeand you don't have these
symptoms, I would just takeprecautions now to slow down the
(11:52):
depletion process.
I'm not saying that, don't haveany fun, I totally get it.
I have this thing planned withmy friends once a year and we do
go clubbing and we're out until2 am.
You have times when you have toenjoy your life, so don't
(12:13):
stress and think that you needto stop living life.
However, what I want you tolook at is this what are you
doing to preserve your energysavings bank?
Do you know what you need to bedoing but not doing?
Do you find yourself making upexcuses like well, it's just
this one time, it won't matterin the long run, well, these one
(12:36):
times are going to add up tobig withdrawals from your energy
savings bank.
So, to wrap it up, let's recaprecap we talked about in this
episode what makes us alldifferent, and the reason is our
kidney jing or essence ourenergy savings bank.
We're born with a certainamount of this energy reserve
(12:58):
and our lifestyle choicesdetermine how quickly we
withdraw from the savings andultimately impact fertility,
because reproductive energy ispart of the kidney gene or
essence.
So your action item, as weconcluded this episode, is focus
on what you can control.
You can only control your ownactions, your own choices.
(13:20):
We always have a choice, andyou'll know whether your choice
will help you or set you backwhen you start seeing results or
when it seems like nothing isworking.
So there you have it.
I hope you enjoyed today'sepisode.
If you like what you're hearing, please don't forget to share
with others.
Thank you so much for tuning intoday.
(13:40):
Until next time, have a greatweek.
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